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The planning, building, launching, and ground support of Westar have involved hundreds of persons, not only in the Los Angeles area but from as far away as Guam, a tracking station site.

Some of the key people involved with this spacecraft and satellite ground control are Lloyd Harrison, Westar Program manager; Hal Smith, assistant satellite program manager; Clyde McGee, assistant program manager for Satellite Ground Control and Hughes mission director; Murray Neufeld, Orbital Software.

Major contributors to the communications repeater, developed in Howard Ozaki’s laboratory, are Jim Shimizu, Neal Silence, Larry Shrum, Thurston Armstrong, Ted Plants, and Dave Kaplan. The repeater was developed by the Electron Dynamics Division under Herm Smith.

The development of the ground control hardware and software at the Satellite Control Facility in Glenwood, NJ, as well as the tracking station at Guam was the responsibility of the Satellite Ground System Laboratory under Lou Greenbaum. Key individuals in development were Al Koury assistant laboratory manager; Joe Castaldo, Ground Control Equipment manager; and Walt Cohn, Ground Control Software Design.

The Guam tracking station worked in conjunction with and was under direction of the mission control center at the Western Union Satellite Control Facility during the transfer orbit phase and through apogee motor firing. The Guam station was supported by Al Koury, Chief Scientist Meredith Eick of Commercial Systems Division, Jack Clarkson, Bill Kinder, Larry Ohlrogge, Luis Mata, Bill Walls, Rod Payne, Hal Recher, and Jack Woods.